About Me

I took very early retirement from teaching in '06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring. As a voracious reader, I have many books waiting in line for me to read. Tell me I shouldn't read something, and I will. I'm a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience. I'm looking forward to traveling more some day. I enjoy walking, cycling, water aerobics & and sports like tennis, volleyball, and fastpitch/baseball. I'm just getting into photography as a hobby and I'm enjoying learning all the bits and bobs of my digital camera. My family is everything to me and I'm delighted to be the mother of two girls and the Gramma of a boy and a girl. I may be a Gramma, but I'm at heart just a girl who wants to have fun.

Monday, May 29, 2017

USA and US

The USA has been quite the topic of conversation these days as it and its new President have been in the news a lot. Now I have friends and family who are Americans and I love them dearly plus I've met many Americans during my travels. Everyone is always pleasant and fun to hang out with. However, we do have some differences in history, mannerisms, culture, and outlook on life. I was checking online the other day about what information people in the USA might find amusing about Canada and came upon a good site. Here are a few tidbits.

1. Our president is called a Prime Minister. Currently, it's Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party, which is sort of like your Democratic Party.

2. The Queen of England is not our national leader. She's just a figurehead and somebody to put on our money with the birds. (Some Royalists in Canada will have something different to say about his, but they're a minority.)

3. Our states are called Provinces. We even have three Territories.4. In the War of 1812, we kicked your butts. (*hee hee*) The reason why your White House is white is because we set fire to it and it was whitewashed to hide the damage (for propaganda purposes). Some Americans will say that THEY won the war. However, to win, a party must reach their objective. Your objective was to take over British North America (what Canada was called then), our goal was to stop you. You don't have any more northern territory along the Canada/US border than you did before 1812. So who won? (Alaska doesn't count, you BOUGHT that state from Russia.)

5. We do not find the term "Canuck" derogatory, like Americans find "Yank" derogatory. It apparently originated during World War One. Your soldiers were call "doughboys" and ours were called "Johnny Canucks". I think the British coined the term, but I'm not sure. Our Vancouver hockey team is called the Canucks!

6. We are not "just like Americans"; we have our own national identity, we just haven't figured out what it is, yet. Someone once said that, "Canadians are unarmed Americans with health care." That pretty much sums it up, I guess. We are internationally (but unofficially) known as the "World's Most Polite Nation."

7. Not every Canadian speaks French. In fact, Canada is the only country where speaking French is not cool. This is the only "French" Canadians like!

8. Even if an "American" team wins the Stanley Cup (the "World Series" of hockey) it doesn't matter to us, because all your best players are Canadian.

9. On the other hand, if a "Canadian" team wins the World Series we ignore the fact that all our baseball players are American.

10. We have no right to keep and bear arms. So leave your guns home if you're visiting, otherwise they'll be confiscated at the border. We have very strict gun laws, and fully automatic weapons are pretty much illegal. It almost takes an Act of God to get a licence to own a pistol. (This may be a contributing factor as to why we only have about 600 homicides a year, nation-wide.)

10 comments:

What a delightful and polite way of explaining tSA and Canada.I would dearly love to visit Canada such an amazingCountry.We have been to America, visiting Atlanta and a drive throughthe deep south, cotton fields and 'The corn was as high as anelephant's eye'. We ate steak and eggs (easy over), corn cob and grits,i don't quite now what grits are for, rather tasteless (imho)..big potof coffee and freshly cooked donuts..delicious !Eventually drove to Orlando/Disney (Naturally) it was amazing,.On another trip we went to Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico. totally chill out time as we both had been working very hard...Ian retired when he was 54 yrs of age and me when I was just 50 yrs of age,we had a blast travelling over the years until health issues hit me and then recently Ian. We have some great memories to look back on and have a laugh about....so onward and upward now...BTW My darling came home last night and I'm so happy..love Di xxAbcw team.

Very nice comparison ! When I started blogging in 2006, without looking who had wrote the post I knew who was American. Canadians and Australians wrote in my opinion just like the Europeans, except there were few who wrote in English. American blogs are often full of God and religion which you don't find in other blogs.